That’s the theme of her superb fifth studio album, “Beyoncé” (Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia), which arrives as a feat of both music and promotion. Its songs are steamy and sleek, full of erotic exploits and sultry vocals; every so often, for variety, they turn vulnerable, compassionate or pro-feminist. And with both the songs and the videos, Beyoncé consolidates one of pop’s most finely balanced personas; she is, at once, glamorous and down-home, carnal and sweet, “Queen Bey” and a diligent trouper, polished and human. “Underneath the pretty face is something complicated,” she sings in “No Angel.”

Video by Beyonce

“Beyoncé” suddenly appeared in the iTunes music store with no prior hype — though plenty thereafter — at midnight Eastern time on Thursday. That’s the latest iteration of a tactic already used this year by David Bowie and My Bloody Valentine, who also released albums with no announcement or buildup. Of course, Beyoncé one-upped them: “Beyoncé” includes elaborate videos for every song, many of them made on location — in France, Brazil, Australia — while the multitasking Beyoncé was taking her “Mrs. Carter Show” tour around the world. (It returns to Barclays Center on Dec. 19 and 22.)

She needed only an Instagram announcement to draw international attention, and the album immediately went to No. 1 in 90 countries on iTunes’ rankings. It was no secret that she had been working for a long time on the album, her first since “4,” in 2011. And it arrives at nearly the last possible moment for the lucrative Christmas season.

But Beyoncé transformed a delay into a selling point. And by not manufacturing discs until the album appeared online — they are promised to retail stores before Christmas — her label avoided the leaks that often occur during manufacturing and distribution. Neatly done.

In a year full of overblown marketing campaigns for albums that were letdowns — among them, “Magna Carta ... Holy Grail,” by Beyoncé's husband, Jay Z — “Beyoncé” should long outlast the initial stir. The songs are alert to the current sound of clubs and radio, but not trapped by it; the refrains are terse and direct, but what happens between them isn’t formulaic. And while Beyoncé constructed the songs with a phalanx of collaborators, they all know better than to eclipse her creamy, soulful voice.

After the scattershot styles on “4,” Beyoncé has chosen to stick with largely electronic R&B. She worked with longtime hitmakers — Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, The-Dream, Justin Timberlake — and relative newcomers like Hit-Boy and Boots. Mostly, they supply her with means of seduction: particularly in “Rocket,” an ultraslow tease that looks back to Prince (by way of the Prince fans Miguel and Mr. Timberlake, who are among the songwriters), as harmonies blossom all around Beyoncé's cooing lead vocal.

The even more explicit “Partition,” savoring sex in a limo, has a sparse synthesizer pulse and little swoops before a whispery chorus joins her. “Superpower,” a vow of lasting “tough love” that’s a duet with Frank Ocean, gives doo-wop a futuristic sheen, as her voice goes low and smoky. Meanwhile, “Jealous” — about promises, suspicion and potential revenge — turns into an accusatory anthem.

Video by Beyonce

But Beyoncé offers solidarity alongside romance. “Heaven” is a mourning song with hymnlike piano, offering tearful comfort: “Heaven couldn’t wait for you/So go on, go home”; it may be heard at funerals for years to come. “Flawless,” with a staccato, trap-flavored track, mixes growling celebrity autobiography — “I took some time to live my life/but don’t think I’m just his little wife” — with a feminist speech from a Nigerian author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and a sisterly cheer, “I look so good tonight!”

The album’s opener is “Pretty Hurts,” written with Sia Furler, which denounces “plastic smiles” and warns, “It’s the soul that needs the surgery.” Its video shows beauty pageant contestants in backstage distress, and through the album, both video and audio snippets remind us that Beyoncé has been a performer and contestant since childhood.

Video by Beyonce

“Flawless” begins and ends with a televised talent contest lost by one of Beyoncé's many youthful groups, Girls Tyme (raising the hindsight question of where the winners are now). And while most of the videos show Beyoncé in elaborate designer luxury with dancers and actors, she also appears among ordinary people on Coney Island, in Brazil and at a Houston roller disco.

The full album includes a video of “Grown Woman” — a song that appeared earlier this year as a Pepsi commercial — that juxtaposes images of the wealthy, grown-up Beyoncé, drink in hand, with grainy shots of her youthful efforts as a performer: eager, smiling, diligent. Superstar and striver, impossibly accomplished without forgetting a humble start, Beyoncé has it both ways, and “Beyoncé” makes it believable.

Ben Sisario contributed reporting.

A version of this review appears in print on December 14, 2013, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: A December Surprise, Without Whispers (or Leaks). Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe